


the rom coms get it wrong

by twilightstargazer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, lots of fluff tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 14:12:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8755669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightstargazer/pseuds/twilightstargazer
Summary: In which Lily's big mouth gets her in trouble and she needs a date for her sister's engagement party.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not even going to pretend that this isn't ridiculous. BECAUSE IT IT.

Lily Evans needed a stiff drink. Or twenty.

“Stop that,” she hisses for the umpteenth time this evening, slapping his hand from where it was slowly inching up to fidget with his tie.

James makes a face at her, but drops his hand nonetheless. “I can’t believe you made me wear a  _ tie _ ,” he complains, saying the word tie as someone might say  _ laryngitis  _ or _ brussel sprouts. _

She barely refrains from rolling her eyes, choosing instead to dig her nails into his forearm. “No, I was making Sirius wear a tie, but then he got sick so I ended up with you at the last moment. It’s like paying for Prada and then getting some cheap knockoff instead.”

He snorts, steering them to an empty table nearby. “You wound me, Evans.”

Lily crosses her legs as she sits, pasting on a large, sunny smile. “Shut up and put you arm around me. And pretend to be hopelessly in love with me.”

James does as she instructs, draping his arm across her shoulders and bringing her flush against his side, though not before dipping his head and whispering, “Oh come off it, Evans. If anyone is looking hopelessly in love with anyone here, it’s you.”

He receives an elbow to the gut for that, but it does nothing to wipe the grin from his face.

 

* * *

 

One day Lily Evans’ pride is going to be the death of her.

She doesn’t actively try to get herself in these sort of positions, okay? It just happens. Mostly because she’s that person who, if you tell them not to do something, she’s going to do the thing all while staring straight in your eyes.

(Back in primary school Alfred Hodges once told her that girls couldn’t swing as high as boys. Of course, Lily took it upon herself to prove him wrong, swinging almost the entire way around just to drive her point home. She broke her arm falling off in the process, but she proved him wrong, goddammit.)

(You’d think after that she’d learn how to not let things like that get to her, but oh well.)

Which is why, when the combination of Petunia’s very serious, very important boyfriend, and her cousin’s wedding spawned an increase in the amount of ‘and what about you, Lily dear? Planning on settling down anytime soon?’, she snapped.

(“As a matter of fact, yes,” she sniffs, ignoring the far too dramatic gasp Great Aunt Martha gives, “There’s someone at the law firm where I work. We’re serious.”)

(This was the first of many mistakes to come.)

Lily had walked off while the old woman was still in the midst of doing her best goldfish impersonation, a spring in her step as she grabs a flute of champagne of a passing waiter and put the thought out of her mind.

(The second mistake. She should have remembered that Great Aunt Martha is a notorious gossip. The news made it back to Petunia before the night was over.)

She cornered her a week later, when Lily was still half asleep and trying her best to make toast without accidentally setting something on fire.

“So,” she starts off, far too peppy, making Lily jump and slosh juice onto the countertop. “Aunt Martha told me that you have a new boyfriend. Imagine how surprised I was to hear that.”

It takes her mind a few seconds to catch up with her words, and when it does, she swears under her breath, damning the old woman to hell.

“Rude to be talking about me behind my back, Tuney,” she says lightly, trying to buy time to come up with a solid story.

“Rude to be trying to change the subject, Lily,” she shoots back, “Who is he?”

“Okay first of all, I just said it was someone. It could be a girl. Don’t let heteronormativity rule your life,” she chirps, taking a swig of juice.

Petunia just rolls her eyes and presses forward. “I think you’re stalling because it was a big fat lie.”

Her cheeks flood with colour. “Was not!”

“Was too!”

“Fine! You want me to prove that they’re real?” she says, slamming her cup back down with far more force than is necessary. Petunia just nods once, already grinning like that cat that got the cream. “I’ll bring them to your stupid engagement party next month then. How’s that for real?”

Petunia, still smirking, just drawls, “Fine by me,” she pauses before fully exiting the kitchen, “Your toast is burning my the way.”

Lily just swears violently and attempts to salvage her breakfast, too distracted to realise that her sister just played her like a fiddle.

 

* * *

 

“So you’ll help me?” she asks, spread out on the black leather couch, face down in a cushion after having spilled the whole pathetic story to Sirius.

He just shrugs, brushing his hair out of his face. “Sure, why not. This whole thing seems like a trainwreck waiting to happen and I want front row tickets to the shitshow.”

Lily barely raises her head high enough to smile at him.

She and Sirius were an unlikely pair of friends.

They started off as rivals, and then realised that they were much better off as allies in the snake pit that was the law firm they worked at, and then that bloomed into a flourishing friendship in which they became one of the firm’s most powerful partners.

It’s safe to say she likes him just a smidge.

“Thank god,” she groans in relief. “I’ll buy you those stupid oat chocolates you like so much for like, a month.”

“They’re called oat crunch bars and they’re delicious.”

“I don’t care what they’re called. Chocolate isn’t meant to be healthy. It’s just wrong.”

“You’re just wrong.”

“Cheers mate.”

Lily likes to think that after that conversation everything is solved. Sirius doesn’t date, but she has confidence in his ability to bullshit his way through this. And if all else fails, well, he’s very, very pretty, and she’s praying that that would be enough.

Of course, things never go to plan, and Lily thinks that some sort of cosmic force is trying to get back at her for the lie. Two days before the party, Sirius comes down with the virus, a terrible strain that leaves him pale and clammy and unable to eat anything other than saltines and pedialyte.

“You look like shit,” James says unhelpfully while Lily runs back in with a new compress to press to his head.

“Still look better than you,” he rasps before proceeding to hack his lung out.

Lily tuts at him, even as she brushes his hair away from his face.

“You can’t go anywhere in this condition,” she says, dread already curdling her stomach.

Sirius just groans into his pillow. “No, I can’t. I’m sorry Lils.”

She shrugs. “S’alright. I’ll figure out something to tell Tuney. Or maybe just steal a bottle of champagne and run back here to play video games with you.”

“You’re a gem, Evans,” he snorts, “But I actually have a better idea.” He then kicks James hard in the thigh, causing the other boy to almost slide off the bed.

“Ow! What the hell?” he asks, rubbing his leg.

“You’re free this weekend, right? I assume no one willingly wants to spend time in your company.”

“You willingly spend time in my company everyday,” he points out, “You chose to live with me.”

“Semantics,” he brushes it off with a wave of his hand, “We all know there’s something wrong with me.”

“More than one thing,” Lily mutters under her breath.

Sirius shoots her a side eyed glare. “I’m trying to help you here, Evans. Honestly, some people are just ungrateful,” he huffs before turning back to James. “Evans needs your help.”

Lily’s eyes widen and she says, “No,” the same times James asks, “With what?”

It’s not that she doesn’t  _ like  _ James Potter. She does. Maybe a bit too much despite the fact that their very first meeting ended with her almost throwing a glass at his head. He’s Sirius roommate, a bit cocky at times and likes to pick far too many fights with her (and let’s be real, she does the same to him) but he’s an all round good guy and frankly Lily doesn’t know when she fell for him

(Maybe sometime in between the Snape debacle, when he made her soup and let her cry on his shoulder until Sirius came home, and the time when she found out he’s never seen Star Wars and he let her spend the entire weekend tucked against each other on the couch marathoning it.)

There was a reason she asked Sirius to be her fake date to this thing and not James.

And the reason was that they’d have to be in close contact with each other at all times, smiling and laughing and- well. It just doesn’t seem like a good idea.

“Come on Evans,” Sirius wheedles, “You need help, James is willing to help, what’s the problem here?”

And since she can’t do anything other than open and close her mouth wordlessly a few times, that’s how she ends up with James Potter as her fake date to her sister’s engagement party.

Brilliant.

 

* * *

 

While she admits that Sirius still might have been a bit candidate for the evening’s proceedings- he’s far more cool and composed and put together compared to James- James isn’t really all that bad.

He shows up at her flat right on time, hair set in its usual chaotic whirlwind, glasses crooked on his nose, and a boyish grin stretched across his face in a way that makes her heart flip.

“Ready?” he asks, and she just nods, heaving a great sigh.

“I suppose,” she says, “At least there’s an open bar. If all else fails, we steal the alcohol and leg it as fast as possible.”

“I’ll be right behind you with as many hors d'oeuvres as I can fit in my pocket,” he says solemnly, eyes twinkling.

Lily throws her head back and laughs. “I’ll lend you my purse as well.”

“I like how you think, Evans.”

The night started off okay. She took pleasure in the look on Petunia’s face when she saw that she did in fact bring someone with her to the party, and James was surprisingly adept at charming everyone within a ten foot radius, despite his awkward and rambly personality.

He was all stupid jokes and crinkly eyes, and yeah, okay, if he interfered with his tie once more she was going to strangle him with it, but things were  _ fun  _ and for a moment Lily almost forgot that they were pretending.

(“You two are  _ adorable _ ,” her mother says with a wink, and they both flush. Lily quickly hurries them away before anything else happens, dragging James by their linked fingers.

They get a lot of comments like that actually, and whenever Petunia is in earshot, she makes a face like she’s swallowed a lemon. Normally this would make Lily happy, but for now she’s far too busy trying to control the blush that warms her cheeks.)

But as the night wore on, things got more and more strained. He can’t seem to touch her for one, hands hovering over her hips and waist before decidedly falling still at his side. And those coy grins and soft laughs moved into stony silence and awkward grins.

After they’ve spent an appropriate amount of time suffering at the engagement party, Lily does in fact steal a bottle of wine and hide it in her purse before walking back to the table they were sat at.

“Let’s go,” she sighs, grabbing his hand and trying to hide her hurt when he flinches away from her touch.

The ride back to her apartment is tense and silent, and when they finally turn up at her complex, when he turns to her and says a quiet, “Goodnight,” the first words he’s said to her in almost two hours, she snaps.

“Are you fucking serious?” she demands, lifting a perfectly sculpt eyebrow. “That’s all you have to say?  _ ‘Goodnight _ ?’”

“I-”

“I should have gone by myself,” she mutters bitterly as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “I should have just sucked it up and gone by myself.”

“What do you want me to say, Evans?” he asks, sounding just as bitter as she does which- no. He doesn’t have any right to sound like that, not when he almost ruined everything, and it just makes her ten times angrier.

“What do I want you to say?” she asks, voice dangerously low, “You almost fucked up the entire thing! I asked you- Sirius asked you- if you were okay with this, and-”

“I thought I was!” he explodes, turning to face her, seat belt pulled tight against his chest. “I thought I could handle one night of holding your hand, and pretending to be in love with you, but I can’t, not when I’m _ actually in love you _ !”

He slumps against his seat, breathing heavily and Lily stares at him, jaw hanging open.

“What?” she manages to croak out, and he just scrubs a weary hand across his face.

“Nothing.”

“No,” she says, voice still weak, “I want you to say it again.”

“Fine,” he relents, clenching his jaw as he meets her gaze with his stubborn one, “I’m in love with you, and I have no idea how, or why, but I am despite the fact that you don’t feel the same way, and I’m working on getting over-”

“Who says I don’t?” she interrupts loudly, so loud that her voice bounces off the walls of the car.

“What.”

“Who says I don’t,” she repeats, willing her voice not to waver.

James is looking at her, completely dumbstruck, and Lily is just about to start pulling things together to tell him, ‘yes you idiot, yes I’m in love with you too, how could you have not realised?’ when he leans over and kisses her.

(In retrospect, she supposes that she could have done this too, but, well, cut her some slack. That was a pretty mind altering confession he made.)

The kiss is hard, all tooth and tongue and his thumb is rubbing against her cheekbone while licks into his mouth, tasting shortcake and mint and something else underneath that’s just unique to James. One of her hands curl around his stupid tie, and the other makes an even bigger mess of his hair.

Eventually the fervour of their kisses slow, just around the time he starts to realise that the gear shift is sticking him in the stomach as he leant over, and her seatbelt is chafing uncomfortably against her neck.

He let’s his forehead stay pressed against hers after they break the kiss, the frame of his glasses pressing into her skin, but she doesn’t care.

Finally, Lily lets out a shaky breath. “Want to come up?” she asks, suddenly shy, “I stole a bottle of wine.”

He gives her that ridiculous crooked grin, the one that makes her heart flip in her chest. “I don’t put out on the first date. What kind of man do you take me for Evans,” he teases, and she rolls her eyes, smacking him lightly in the chest as her cheeks pink.

“This was like, a half a date at best,” she tells him, undoing her seatbelt, “But alright then. More wine for me.”

He stops her with a hand on her wrist as she opens the door to step out. “I never said I didn’t want to split the bottle,” he says, and she fucking beams at him, brighter than the Christmas lights decorating the windows on the street.

(He leaves after the bottle is done, but is right back on her doorstep the next day, flowers in hand and another bottle to share.)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm doing 12 days of ficmas on [tumblr](http://hiddenpolkadots.tumblr.com)! come on over and say hi :)


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